First of all, thank you to all who read Wednesday’s blog. I am blown away by the responses I received. I am so humbled that my words brought comfort to so many, although I can’t take full credit for what I wrote! I think God may have had a little something to do with that. 🙂 It’s hard to move on and post normally after something so raw and heartfelt, but that’s what life is about, isn’t it? Moving on, tackling those day-to-day activities until some sort of normalcy returns. So here I go with today’s post.
During marathon training when my ITB flared up, I posted about the confusion that ensued after my flimsy attempt at listening to my body. At that time, I thought my ITB felt fine (well, fine as long as I wasn’t on a run longer than 6 miles). During that pain-ridden journey, I may have just achieved that elusive mind-body connection (for now, at least…until Crazy Jen comes back).
After the marathon, I seriously thought I would take two weeks off and slowly start building back. It didn’t take me long to realize that 2 weeks would be extended to 4. When I made the decision to extend my recovery period to 4 weeks, I seriously thought that I would be back strong in that amount of time. In the back of my mind, though, a little voice started whispering that it would likely take 6 weeks….or maybe 12. I knew the voice was right and somehow I knew that this time – I had to listen.
My first run post-marathon was 6 weeks in the making, and (again) I had a gut feeling that it wasn’t going to be good (and it wasn’t). I still feel that the time was right to get out there. I went into the run with the mindset that I needed to gather information that would help me shape my training plan going forward. (And I got A LOT of information.) I waited another full week before I went on my next run, which was FABULOUS! It ended up taking me 7 weeks recovery to get “that feeling” that things were heading in the right direction.
I ran again on Tuesday and it was another great run (as long as we ignore the heart rate issue in the first interval). Wednesday evening I was back to see my myofascia guy. I nearly cancelled because things had been going so well, but something told me to keep the appointment. (It’s mind-boggling how often I have been listening to that little voice lately!) In our pre-session debriefing, I told him that my glutes were still VERY tight, despite all the time that I had spent on the dreaded therapy ball. He started on my hip (which was not moving in any form or fashion) and performed a release that he had not used on me before. OH. MY. GOODNESS!!! I knew my hips were tight, but I had NO idea until afterward. Now that entire area feels AMAZING!!!

So it seems like things are all roses, right? Not so much. Let’s just call it like it is: I hate the intervals. And I really dislike being constrained to my heart rate, even though I know that it will be good for me in the long run. I finally admitted to myself that I don’t trust my body. I just don’t. I know that things are better now than they have been in months, but I don’t know what I am going to be able to push myself to do. I want to go run a 15 miler tomorrow and I know I can’t. And quite frankly, I don’t know if I ever will be able to again. I am adding time to my intervals slowly in order to build my base and avoid further injury, but at the same time I’m as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. Every time I go out, I wonder if this is going to be the time that things go haywire again.
Even so, I will keep chugging along, because I really have no other choice. I love running too much to give up when things get tough. I’ll keep in mind some of my own advice: nothing worthwhile is ever easy. So when I do actually get back out there on a run (without intervals), it’s going to be the sweetest thing ever!
Happy weekend!
Jen
To be honest, I think you just need a cupcake. Or 5.
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Heck, let’s just make it and even half-dozen!
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🙂 happy weekend! Keep at it.
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Thanks! My run went pretty well 🙂
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